A recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, based on analysis of Palestinian Authority source material captured by Israel in Ramallah and on independent intelligence, called the suicide bombings against Israelis ?crimes against humanity.? The report further laid the blame for such attacks at the door of the PA leadership, including Yasser Arafat himself. Needless to say, most Arab media either ignored or attacked the report.
The Egyptian Human Rights Organization, according to the Egyptian government newspaper al-Akhbar, even issued its own report ?in which it accused its American counterpart of underrating the Israeli occupation... the violence and destruction, the land seizure and house demolition, it has caused.? The Egyptian organization also reportedly ?stressed that unless occupation itself is perceived as a crime, the American report will not be deemed fair and so will not help actualize the attempts made to stop the killing of civilians.? According to the newspaper, ?The credibility of the US-based Human Rights Watch has been greatly shaken over its recent report, in which it considered Palestinian suicide operations as crimes against humanity. It has even gone a step too far when it blamed the Palestinian Authority and President Arafat himself for such crimes.?
However, not only in Israel is there Moslem terrorism. And not only in the case of Israel does such terrorism find its defenders. The Saudi Arabian Arab News recently published a pathos-filled article declaring that, despite their suicide belts and threats to murder innocent Russian civilians, ?the dead Chechens at the Moscow theater were not terrorists...? The author reaches that conclusion after ironically noting that ?[o]ur world is growing increasingly bizarre and grotesque.? He charges that ?we are at a loss to distinguish the oppressor from the oppressed, aggressor from the aggrieved. Colors and shades are intermingled. Judgments are muddled. Thus, a defender of his motherland, honor and property is labeled a terrorist while the thieves who stole the land, destroyed innocent people?s houses and murdered their children are being called victims. Dispossessed and oppressed Palestinians or Chechens are called criminals according to the prevailing international law....?
The Saudi columnist expresses particular empathy with the female terrorists for having traveled so far from ?their dear ones and the warmth of their homes? to accomplish their mission. He notes with sympathy the ?Chechen women?s toilsome journeys from their distant hamlets and villages to the heart of Russia...? The Arab News article asks, ?Did those men and women go crazy with no reason at all? Were the Palestinians and Chechens born with some rare genetic imbalance? Or are they driven to madness by their intolerably oppressive circumstances??
The answer, according to the newspaper, is in numbers: ?figures are the only dependable source of information.? And so, without providing any figures, the Saudi author asks more questions that he deems rhetorical. ?How many Palestinians and Chechens were killed and what were the number of Israelis and Russians killed? How many Palestinian and Chechen homes and farms were destroyed and how many Israeli and Russian homes and farms? How many Palestinians or Chechens are being held prisoners in Israeli or Russian jails and what are the numbers of Israeli or Russian hostages being held by Palestinians or Chechens?? With these questions raised, the article concludes, ?The figures show that the dead Chechens at the Moscow theater were not terrorists but ordinary people whose sons were unjustly killed, jailed or tortured and their homes and farms destroyed. They had no option but to leave their land, go to Moscow and cry to the world of the unbridled Russian repression and to protest on the international stage the way they did in order to draw the attention of fair-minded people of the world.?
With this analysis of what constitutes terrorism and what not, the article threatens, ?The victims of the past and present centuries will anoint the future of the world with their blood. They will soak the future world in the blood of the oppressors. Let the usurpers take note!?
The Egyptian Human Rights Organization, according to the Egyptian government newspaper al-Akhbar, even issued its own report ?in which it accused its American counterpart of underrating the Israeli occupation... the violence and destruction, the land seizure and house demolition, it has caused.? The Egyptian organization also reportedly ?stressed that unless occupation itself is perceived as a crime, the American report will not be deemed fair and so will not help actualize the attempts made to stop the killing of civilians.? According to the newspaper, ?The credibility of the US-based Human Rights Watch has been greatly shaken over its recent report, in which it considered Palestinian suicide operations as crimes against humanity. It has even gone a step too far when it blamed the Palestinian Authority and President Arafat himself for such crimes.?
However, not only in Israel is there Moslem terrorism. And not only in the case of Israel does such terrorism find its defenders. The Saudi Arabian Arab News recently published a pathos-filled article declaring that, despite their suicide belts and threats to murder innocent Russian civilians, ?the dead Chechens at the Moscow theater were not terrorists...? The author reaches that conclusion after ironically noting that ?[o]ur world is growing increasingly bizarre and grotesque.? He charges that ?we are at a loss to distinguish the oppressor from the oppressed, aggressor from the aggrieved. Colors and shades are intermingled. Judgments are muddled. Thus, a defender of his motherland, honor and property is labeled a terrorist while the thieves who stole the land, destroyed innocent people?s houses and murdered their children are being called victims. Dispossessed and oppressed Palestinians or Chechens are called criminals according to the prevailing international law....?
The Saudi columnist expresses particular empathy with the female terrorists for having traveled so far from ?their dear ones and the warmth of their homes? to accomplish their mission. He notes with sympathy the ?Chechen women?s toilsome journeys from their distant hamlets and villages to the heart of Russia...? The Arab News article asks, ?Did those men and women go crazy with no reason at all? Were the Palestinians and Chechens born with some rare genetic imbalance? Or are they driven to madness by their intolerably oppressive circumstances??
The answer, according to the newspaper, is in numbers: ?figures are the only dependable source of information.? And so, without providing any figures, the Saudi author asks more questions that he deems rhetorical. ?How many Palestinians and Chechens were killed and what were the number of Israelis and Russians killed? How many Palestinian and Chechen homes and farms were destroyed and how many Israeli and Russian homes and farms? How many Palestinians or Chechens are being held prisoners in Israeli or Russian jails and what are the numbers of Israeli or Russian hostages being held by Palestinians or Chechens?? With these questions raised, the article concludes, ?The figures show that the dead Chechens at the Moscow theater were not terrorists but ordinary people whose sons were unjustly killed, jailed or tortured and their homes and farms destroyed. They had no option but to leave their land, go to Moscow and cry to the world of the unbridled Russian repression and to protest on the international stage the way they did in order to draw the attention of fair-minded people of the world.?
With this analysis of what constitutes terrorism and what not, the article threatens, ?The victims of the past and present centuries will anoint the future of the world with their blood. They will soak the future world in the blood of the oppressors. Let the usurpers take note!?